High school students work together on an English project during class at Vernon Hills High School. Despite the school not passing AYP, administrators say their students are equipped for success in high school and beyond. (Kate Jacobson, Tribune photo)

State officials decided in January to raise the cutoff scores for the Illinois Standards Achievement Test — given to primary school students — to get ready for Common Core curriculum. Adequate yearly progress, or AYP, score requirements have also continued to climb.

School officials say, because of this, the scores alone don't tell the whole story of how well a school is doing.

Libertyville District 70 Superintendent Guy Schumacher compared changing the passing requirements to altering the rules in a football game.

"Our students clearly have the skills, the knowledge and performance strengths that show they are successful learners," he said. "They have been taught well and put out a solid performance. Now the end result — how you gain a touchdown — has been changed. It doesn't stop them from performing well; it simply means we now have to address success with a new understanding of scoring practices."

Comparing last year's ISAT scores to this year's scores is like comparing apples and oranges, said Eric Youngman, director of curriculum and instruction at Libertyville District 70.

Schools weren't equipped to meet the new state standards that align with Common Core standards, he said, so the data itself is not entirely comparable.

Adequate yearly progress is becoming increasingly less attainable for the district's schools, he said, though one school in the district — Rockland Elementary School — made its required yearly progress.

No other schools in Libertyville made adequate yearly progress, including area high schools.

In Lake Forest, all but one school — Everett Elementary School — failed to make adequate yearly progress markers, according to a Tribune analysis of state records.

Youngman and Lauren Fagel, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction and technology for Lake Forest District 67 and Lake Forest High School Community District 115, said the schools that passed in the district are doing nothing different than other schools in the area.

Youngman said that with standards so high, it's the norm that most schools will fail. If one passes, he said, it might be as simple as students in those schools were having better days.

Though the scores overall dropped, both Libertyville District 70 and Lake Forest District 67 schools have ISAT scores in the mid-80th percentile — some are in the low 90th percentile.

Youngman said changing the score required to pass this year was just an added blow to schools.

Because schools are still adjusting to new Common Core curriculum requirements, he said, officials don't expect data to accurately reflect student achievement for another few years.

"It's very difficult to compare this year from previous years, because we have those new cut scores," he said. "It will be … aligned [in the future] with Common Core. [I think] we'll align better in 2014, more realistically."

Local districts look at a variety of factors when determining student achievement, officials said.

Key parts of that include focusing on continuing teacher education, implementing varying tests throughout the school year and measuring test scores and achievement even after students have left elementary and middle school, Youngman said.

"Starting in kindergarten, we're meeting all these standards, and we're on trajectory," he said. "I think we're in an excellent spot."

Fagel said Lake Forest schools are focusing more energy on individual students than on standardized tests.

Though scores for primary-school students have dropped and changing standards have created headaches for some administrators and teachers, Fagel said the districts aren't worried about what this year's state data shows.

"From the beginning, the whole AYP system has been unrealistic," she said. "[Standardized tests] are just jumping through hoops for state regulations and mandates. We keep our eye on the prize: Are our students growing each year?"

Both Fagel and Youngman said a better indicator of student achievement would be tracking progress of students through multiple years of school, instead of introducing a new test each year for different sets of students.

Lake Forest school officials are considering tracking student achievement from kindergarten to post-secondary education to see where students felt unprepared and where gaps in learning occurred, Fagel said.

Students in area high schools fared better with Prairie State Achievement Exam scores.